DISRUPTING INNOVATION

DESIGNERCISE IDEATION TOOLKIT

The innovation space somehow started to become very un-innovative, so we set about challenging the stale thinking habits of creatives around the world by designing a gamified set of exercises that any adult can use to overcome rigid thinking practices and unleash new levels of innovative thinking.

Like a workout for your body, Designercise creates clear brain exercises that break down and expose cognitive biases, which allow groups to power beyond mental blocks and dive into free flowing innovative thinking. The Designercise activities help engage players to positively disrupt their ordinary thinking patterns and uncover their hidden creative genius. We tested the activities with hundreds of creatives before being unleashed into the world via a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2015.

UNLEASH CREATIVITY

Getting creative about creativity was the goal, so we challenged ourselves to create an active gamified toolkit that would employ a host of game mechanics to quickly build new problem-solving approaches. Through the mining phase, we discovered that people had a habit of mentally inhibiting creativity, self-censoring, and blocking ideas before they even got out of their mouths! By creating the exercises, we designed workarounds to this common creativity inhibitor.

We took inspiration from a wide range of common cognitive biases and creative thinking inhibitors, and we noticed that the more aware of them people became, the more empowered they were to start to rewriting them so that more innovative ideas and solutions could be accessed. We also refreshed tried and tested methods for unleashing creative thinking through ideation techniques and gamified environments, resulting in a range of fun, easy to play, mental interventions that rapidly bust through creative barriers.

THE EXERCISES

Designercise includes 20 base exercises and several warmups designed around themes of storytelling, design thinking, improvisation, and flexible thinking skills. A kid-friendly kit is also available (the normal ones have slightly risque cards in them!). You can expect a high-energy environment for collaboration and creative problem solving to emerge as the immediate outcome of playing.

Designercise was produced as a limited edition physical toolkit for our Kickstarter backers, and it now can be downloaded as a set of DIY print and play kits for immediate play.